Family Files Wrongful Death Lawsuit Over Gas Explosion

Christina Cole

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Two large companies are being sued in a wrongful-death lawsuit. by the husband and daughter of a Huntington woman that was killed in November in a natural gas explosion.

Filed in Huntington Circuit Court, the lawsuit names Comcast Corp., Comcast Cable of Indiana, a Comcast employee and Indiana Gas Co., doing business as Vectren Energy Delivery of Indiana.

The woman, 75, died on November 20, from smoke inhalation in a horrific explosion caused by a gas leak at her home. Her husband was also home at the time and suffered severe burns over most of his body. He is also suing for damages from personal injury. Also killed in the explosion was an employee of Vectren Energy Delivery.

Borne went to the home to do maintenance and repair work. While grounding the cable line, he drove a copper stake in the ground, which struck and penetrated a plastic natural gas line that is operated by Vectren Energy Delivery. He pulled the stake out and the gas line began leaking into the air, according to court papers.

The lawsuit alleges the emergency response personnel operator at Vectren Energy Delivery took the report but was negligent, claiming the utility provided inadequate and vague warnings for safety measures.

Vectren sent an employee to the home, but before the employee began working on the line, the escaping natural gas had penetrated the Wilsons' home and ignited, causing a huge explosion and fire, according to court documents.

According to the lawsuit, the Wilson family alleges that Borne was negligent in failing to contact utility locator services, that Comcast was negligent in properly training Borne for the safe grounding of cable television line in the vicinity of natural gas service lines and that Vectren was negligent in failing to properly train emergency telephone responders to instruct service workers and residents to evacuate a home when a gas line is cut, as well as in failing to dispatch an employee to shut off the natural gas.